Bad End Part 1, The Worst Isekai

Bad End

A Monster Girl Quest Isekai

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	A dull impact jolted him awake. His first words were mumbled nonsense as the man struggled to bring himself to consciousness. Albert opened his eyes and tried to make sense of his surroundings through his blurred vision. What time was it? But he found that he had more concerning matters at hand. Gone were the comforts of a soft bed and cool sheets. The curiously soft, yet uncomfortable feeling at his hands and knees, the soft crinkling sound as he moved, the dull earthy smell, they sent him a clear message, but in his waking confusion Albert was unable to make sense of it. But he did know one thing. Something was wrong.

	“The fuck?” he whispered, shaking his head. His eyes cleared. Yet his situation became more muddled. Albert was in a wild place, surrounded by trees and other, lesser flora. So thick were their branches that they shielded him from the sun above. Just the barest hints of filtered sunlight managed to reach the forested floor, but they were enough to give him a clear image of his foreign surroundings.

	His heart beat out a worried tempo. One did not simply awaken in the middle of the woods. “What the fuck?” he whispered, worriedly spinning about, his eyes desperately searching for an answer  to his curious circumstances. But there was no answer to be found.

	Some animal instinct kicked in. He was in danger, Albert knew it. With some effort, the man pressed himself into a leafy bush. Scratchy limbs lined with cruel thorns tore at his bare skin, eliciting a gasp of pain, a hissed breath. He'd slept in nothing more than a pair of gray boxer briefs. The rest of him was bared naked to an uncaring wilderness. But that animal instinct inside him urged to hide, and in spite of his little pains he complied.

	A shield of intertwining oval leaves borne by a mass of twisted branches shielded him from view. His back was nestled against the rough surface of the unknown shrubbery. Uncomfortable as he was, Albert felt a moment's calm. He allowed himself to think that he was hidden, safe. It was dark. Not total dark, but surely it would be hard to see him, wouldn't it? Unless his unknown assailant already knew about him.

	Albert's mind raced as his fears threatened to overcome his reason. Why was he out in the middle of the woods? The only reasonable answer was that someone had broken into his home and kidnapped him. He had eaten out the night before. Perhaps his food had been drugged by some deranged maniac? But what kind of person would stalk someone like Albert? What was their interest? What would be their gain? Was this even a reasonable answer? It was impossible to think that some horror film scenario had descended upon his peaceful life, but what else could have happened? A rogue thought entered his mind, that he wouldn't make it to work on time. The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. Surely he had greater concerns than that.

	So, assuming he was correct, that he had indeed been kidnapped by some nefarious pervert or conniving psychopath, what was Albert's next move? If he just hid here, he'd eventually be found by his captor, right? Or perhaps hunger would drive him out, leading him on to a crazed 'Most Dangerous Game' scenario. The idea of being hunted was not appealing. Maybe there was someone out there, some friendly face or police force looking for him? But that seemed a most pitiful, distant hope.

	He had to leave then. Albert would have to find his assailant and defeat them, right? Visions of an action packed conclusion flitted through his mind's eye, with Albert striking a faceless assailant down with a desperate blow. It was stupid. Realistically speaking, he'd be doomed in that situation. He certainly wasn't the most physically fit of human specimens, as his love handles suggested. But he had nothing but hope and a pair of gray boxers, so he made the best choice he could. Fighting seemed a more palatable choice than just waiting to die.

	Albert exited his leafy shelter as quickly as he'd entered it. Paranoia gripped at his heart as the man scanned his surroundings for hidden assailants. Instead, he found opportunities. A fist sized rock called to him, begging to be used in his desperate situation. Albert was all too happy to add it to his sparse inventory. Feeling somewhat emboldened by his improvised weapon, the man began to carefully move through the forest, trying his best to move quietly and carefully.

	Each snapped twig sounded like a gunshot to him in the quiet of that place. Every shifted leaf was a symphony, loudly declaring to his imagined stalker, 'Here I am! Come and kill me!' It was almost enough to take his mind off of the nagging pricks and stabs at his legs and feet as Albert moved through the forest.

	It wasn't all horrible though. A leafy fern gently brushed against his thigh. And for all his lack of clothing, he was spared the misery of cold. No, it was pleasant, a bit hot even. In a way, he was blessed to be lacking pants. The thought was a joke made in dark humor. No, certainly there was nothing good about this situation. But at least he wasn't dead yet.

	Seconds stretched to minutes. Minutes dragged onward, perhaps into hours. Albert could not tell. His fears distorted his sense of time and the woods gave no hint to how far he had progressed. Occasionally, the forest would shift around him, a slight movement here, a stirred branch there. There was life here besides his own, and every time Albert thought his attacker would appear. But they never came. All that lived about him was wild and wilderness.

	That thought did not console him much. He noted a distinct lack of birdsong. It was like the natural things of the woods were specifically avoiding him. It was a normal thing, certainly, for man to be hated by the wild, but his isolation was suspiciously and notably complete.

	Albert had long considered himself a friend of wild places. Not in a tree-hugging hippy way, like some backwoods hick or neo-druid, nothing like that. He just liked being outside, seeing new places. He liked hiking and climbing and exploring, indulging in an almost childlike sense of adventure. But this quiet wood full of nothing struck him as a dark and alien place. Worse, it stunk of cruel omen. Wild animals would always flee from disaster and predators. Albert had little love of either. Was he truly in an isolated wild, or was something wicked stalking his tracks?

	His feet hurt. Love of forests be damned. Albert was not adapting well to his naked and vulnerable state. Careful as he might be, he couldn't help but smash his feet against hidden stones and grasping vegetation. This untamed land was thick with greenery and often he would find his path barred by dense growth. Each time he would be forced to muscle his way through and it would always be far too noisy and painful. But he still had his strength and his wits, though the later was plagued by apprehension.

	For all his experience with forests, he couldn't find it in him to identify the things around him. He was hardly a biologist, but even he could recognize a common tree. And these trees, they had a certain familiarity to them, certainly. Almost an oak. Almost an ash. Maybe they were? But there were others. Things that stood out, trees that he'd certainly never seen before.

	Albert found another one of those disturbingly odd trees barring his path. A cluster of dense growth prevented his passing and at
it's heart was a bulbous yellow tree. It looked sick, an odd yellow that was unpleasantly reminiscent of jaundice. It seemed to have no limbs, like the one's he had seen before, just a crown of strange lilac strands that must have been it's leaves. They were like the threads of a Weeping Willow but thicker. They almost looked like hair. Just looking at it, Albert knew there was something off, something wrong. It had not been the first tree he'd seen, but this would be the first that he would be forced to interact with.

	The man steeled himself for another tiresome passage as he placed his hand on the trunk of that curious tree. With disgust he realized that his hand was somehow sinking in to it's shockingly fleshy' giving surface. He withdrew his hand, though it was no easy task. The horrible plant seemed to stick to him, as if trying to suck him in. Even after he'd freed himself, a sticky sap clung to his palm. Was sap even the right word for it? It was too thick, too viscous, and there was so much. Disgusted, he wiped his hand off in the dirt. Almost immediately he suffered a wincing pain. He noticed with some distress that his hand was covered in a light red rash, some allergic reaction to the thing's ooze.

	He regretted giving in to his curiosity in examining the thing. It was tiresome, but he would just have to find another way. But then the strange tree shifted. It's bulbous curves undulated slowly as the tree somehow turned. How does a tree move? Albert took a cautious step back, but his eyes were ever drawn to the trunk of that awful thing. Because as it turned, it revealed a horrible feature. Red, a great red sphere with a black line in it's center, a line that was directed at him. It was an eye. Centered in this freakish tree was a great red eye. Below it was another, smaller, and then a third eye much like the first. All cast a baleful glare upon him.

	“Ara,” came a voice from above. It demanded his attention, yet Albert could not turn his eyes away from those horrible orbs. Below them, crawling on the ground, was a mass of writhing things, dark and covered in oozing slime, like a mass of worms in some forbidden orgy. He looked away, mind racing, but wherever he looked he was assailed by some disturbing sight. In between those tentacles and those eyes was a recessed band of red, looking like raw flesh. Settled there was a most awful feature, a puckered, gaping orifice that smacked wetly and horribly against itself, leaving him with the horrible notion that it was reaching, desperately, hungrily towards him.

	Finally, Albert managed to turn his eyes upward. In stark contrast to that monstrosity, a woman's body appeared. As if clumsily juxtaposed on this abomination was a pale woman, slender with full breasts. Her arms ended at her shoulders, as if they'd been amputated and replaced with the churning pseudo pods that trailed down her cruel form. The thing spoke once more as an awful revelation threatened at the edge of Albert's conscious mind. But the things she said were curious words, things he half knew, a language that seemed far too much like Japanese. It was too troubling, because it lent credence to a most terrible thought.

	Albert matched eyes with the face of that girl perched atop a monster's body. It was a face that was shockingly familiar even though he'd never met such a person. After all, it was the only face that Setouchi knew how to draw. Albert suddenly knew with horrible certainty that he was looking at a monster girl, a beast consumed with a terrible lust for the flesh of men. Usually that was in a sexy, figurative way. Looking at this monster, as it licked it's lips with a dull, cruel look, he knew that the matter would be more literal.

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	Albert has panicked. Does he:
	Fight? (Bad End)
	Flight?

	Each chosen path will be written. Paths will be written in the order chosen. Unchosen paths will not be written (perhaps sparing me the terrors of writing horror porn). Should no choice be made, I will continue on the choice that would continue the story. Since the thread's slow, make your choice there. If it gets to be a problem, I'll take it to a poll or something.